Google Fights Businessman's Attempt to Erase Conviction Links
- Hearing is the first ‘right to be forgotten’ case in England
- Man wants Google to take down links to old conviction
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
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Google is fighting a businessman in a London court over whether people have the right to purge old convictions from online search results in the U.K.’s first so-called “right to be forgotten’’ trial.
The man, who can’t be identified by name because of a court order, wants Google to remove links about being found guilty in a false accountancy conspiracy in the late 1990s. Under English law designed to rehabilitate offenders, that conviction doesn’t have to be disclosed to potential employers and can effectively be ignored.